This is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application, Ser. No. 884,047, filed July 10, 1986 and now abandoned.
A wide variety of caulking cartridges has long been employed for use in a number of applications. These cartridges are commonly used in caulking guns for applying caulking material in joints either to seal the joints, to improve their esthetic appearance and/or prior to painting.
One common example of a replaceable caulking cartridge and caulking gun is illustrated in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings and is described in greater detail below. In any event, since each cartridge is used only for a short time, they are generally formed with a tubular nozzle of relatively thin and soft material, usually plastic. Normally, the user cuts off the end of the tubular nozzle to form an opening through which caulking material is ejected from the cartridge.
In most applications, the user moves the cartridge along a joint to be caulked for applying a continuous bead of caulking material. In most applications, it is desirable that the bead be formed with a continuous configuration for esthetic purposes. Usually, a coating of paint or the like is applied over the bead so that the configuration of the bead remains clearly apparent.
In applications of the type particularly contemplated by the present invention, the joint is formed between angularly aligned surfaces, for example, between wallboard or other wall surfaces and trim such as doors, windows, etc.
In various applications such as painting houses or other buildings, large numbers of cartridges are used and it is important that the user be able to apply a continuous bead as noted above in a rapid manner while using up substantially all of the caulking material available from each cartridge for purposes of economy.
Accordingly, there has been found to remain a need for improved tips for use on such cartridges to apply the caulking material. As noted above, a great number of designs for caulking guns and the like have been made available in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,121,516 issued Feb. 18, 1964 to De Wees et al disclosed a cartridge and caulking gun combination including a discharge control device or nozzle formed integrally with the cartridge.
With the nozzle being tapered, it could be cut off at any point along its length by the user depending, for example, upon the size of bead desired. However, since the nozzle was intended only for use during the life of the cartridge, it was formed from a relatively soft, thin plastic material. For that reason, the nozzle tended to become abraded or roughened at its outlet orifice, interfering with subsequent smooth bead formation. The roughened or abraded tip of the nozzle tended to cause skipping and undesirable discontinuities in the bead being formed
U.S. Pat. No. 3,188,057 issued June 8, 1965 to Trumbull disclosed yet another caulking device wherein the nozzle was separately formed from and threaded onto the cartridge to form an outlet for caulking material. However, that nozzle otherwise appeared to have the same limitations referred to above.
Other examples of caulking devices were also disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,058,632; 3,076,225; 3,439,839; 3,997,085 and 4,311,258. However, the caulking tips provided in those patents were also generally similar to those referred to above and that shown in FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings and described in greater detail below.
The wall surfaces contacted by the nozzle or tip during application of the caulking material also present a particularly severe condition for the tip. The present invention particularly contemplates caulking in joints formed between angularly aligned surfaces. For example, it is necessary or desirable to caulk joints formed between the wall surfaces and trim including doors, windows and the like. In such applications, the walls are typically formed from wallboard and are covered with taping compounds, or texturing material or other material applied to the wallboard or sheetrock before caulking of the joints noted above. The above compounds typically include sand or other highly abrasive materials. Accordingly, they tend to cause very high wear rates on normal caulking tips of the type referred to above.
There has been found to remain a need for an improved replaceable tip to facilitate application of caulking material in joints and elsewhere while facilitating formation of a smooth bead of caulking material.